Road builder



Sept. 19, 1961 R. A. GURRIES ET AL 3,000,122

ROAD BUILDER Filed Jan. 19, 1959 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 R-H. Gul'ries John Curle HTTYS Sept 19, 1961 R. A. GURRIES ET AL 3,000,122

ROAD BUILDERl Filed Jan. 19, 1959 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENTORS HTTYS United States Patent 3,000,122 ROAD BUILDER cRaymond A. Gurries, San Jose, and John Curlett, Los Gatos, Calif., assignors to Gurries Manufacturing Co., San Jose, Calif., a corporation of California Filed Jan. 19, 1959, Ser. No. 787,496 Claims. (Cl. 37-180) This invention relates to land leveling implements, and particularly to one designed for accurately leveling or grading a road base prior to laying the nish material thereon.

Such an implement is shown in our copending application, Serial No. 685,106, tiled September 20, 1957 (now United States Patent No. 2,883,777, dated April 28, 1959); the implement of the present invention incorporating certain advantageous features over what are shown in said patent.

One object of the invention is to mount a driven auger conveyor in the bowl, which is arranged to discharge to either side of the implement as may be desired, and which is arranged so that while it will relieve the bowl of an excessive load as the implement advances, it will always leave suicient dirt in the bowl for fill purposes.

The implement includes a tail boom mounted for horizontal swivel movement, and another object of this invention is to provide a manually controlled means for swinging or steering the boom, and for maintaining it in any swung position if desired, as when turning short or in a restricted area.

The implement includes frame-supporting wheel units mounted for relative vertical adjustment independently of each other, and hydraulic rams to eiect such adjustment.

A further object of the invention is to provide `a hydraulic system for the rams so that while both rams will be fed identical amounts of fluid upon variations in the longitudinal level of the ground traversed by the implernent, fluid will be fed to--or withdrawn fromone only of the rams upon deviations in the lateral level of the roadway being encountered. At the same time, such single feeding does not affect or interfere with a subsequent equal or dual feeding to-or withdrawal of fluid fromthe two rams.

It is also an object of the invention to provide a practical, reliable, and durable road builder, and one which will be exceedingly effective for the purpose for which it is designed.

These objects are accomplished by means of such structure and relative arrangement of parts as will fully appear by a perusal of the following specification and claims.

In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a side elevation, partly broken away, of the improved road builder; the hydraulic piping to the various cylinders being omitted to simplify the showing.

FIG. 2 is a top plan view of the same.

FlG. 3 is a fragmentary longitudinal section, taken on line 3-3 of FIG. 2.

FIG. 4 is a diagram of `the improved hydraulic leveling system.

Referring now more particularly to the drawings and to the characters of reference marked thereon, the implement comprises a main frame, indicated generally at 1, which includes rearwardly diverging side beams 2 connected at their rear end by a transverse or cross beam 3. At its forward end the frame is supported by a swivel truck 4 adapted for connection to a draft tractor, and at the rear by dual wheel units 5. These units are mounted for separate or independent vertical movement relative to the frame, as will be hereinafter shown.

A curved back plate 6 depends from cross beam 3, and at its lower end is provided with a ground engaging blade 7, as shown in FIG. 3.

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The plate and blade, at their ends, are secured to-and confined between-side plates 8 which extend both ahead and to the rear of said plate 6; said side plates being disposed laterally out from the adjacent wheel units 5. Said plates 8 are braced and connected at their forward end to the frame beams 2 by means of a heavy cross beam 9 extending under beams 2 and secured thereto by suitable brackets 10. The back plate 6, blade 7, and side plates 8 together form a restraining bowl for the dirt scraped up by the blade.

Each wheel unit 5 is mounted on a downwardly and forwardly sloping radial -arm 1f1, disposed between the two wheels of the unit, and at its forward end engaging a cross shaft 12 journaled in connection with the framemounted plates 6 and 8 back of the blade 7.

A dual one-way ram unit 13 is connected between cross beams 3 and arm 11, and is arranged so that extension of the ram by iluid pressure lowers the wheels relative to the frame; the weight of the structure bearing down on the wheels contracting the ram unit when the uid therein is free to escape.

As will be recognized, the structure so far described is generally old, as for instance is shown in United States Patent No. 2,792,651, to H. W. Hobday, dated May 2l, 1957.

Extending across the bowl a certain distance above and clear of the blade 7 is an auger conveyor 14 which, at its ends, projects through openings 15 in the side plates 8 and into collars 16 secured to said plates and surrounding the openings. These collars provide for a smooth guided discharge of the dirt conveyed by the auger.

The shaft 17 of said auger projects some distance further out from the plates 8 and collars 16 and is journaled at its outer ends in bearings 18 xed in plates 19 depending from short bolsters 20 rigid with side plates 8 above collars 16. This arrangement enables dirt conveyed laterally by the auger to discharge without interference onto the ground alongside the machine in the form of a windrow as said machine advances,

The auger is spaced from the blades 7 so as to leave a mass of dirt in the bowl sufficient for ll purposes of the roadway being prepared, while preventing the accumulation and retention of an excessively heavy load in the bowl such as would put an undue strain on the draft tractor, as well as on the road building machine. The auger may also be used to transfer dirt from one side of the bowl to the other, for slope correction.

The auger is reversibly driven in the following manner:

An internal combustion engine 21, or the like, is mounted on the forward portion of the frame 1, and the propeller shaft 22 thereof drives-through a conventional form of gearing 23-a transverse shaft unit 24 in which a reversible dual clutch unit 25 is interposed. At one end, shaft unit 24 is connected to the adjacent end of auger shaft .17 and laterally out from the adjacent plate 19, by a chain drive 26. Said end of shaft unit 24 is journaled in a bearing 27 supported from the adjacent bolster-mounted plate 19, and which plate is extended forwardly to engage bearing 27, as shown in FIG. 2. A change-speed transmission 28 is interposed in shaft unit 24 between the clutch unit 25 and the chain driye 26. Engagement of either one or the other of the clutches is controlled by manipulation of an upstanding, laterally swingable hand lever 29.

This lever 29 is disposed to one side of and adjacent the operators seat 30 mounted on a platform 31 supported on frame 1 and projecting rearwardly from cross beam 3 about the level thereof.

Various forms of connecting means may of course be employed Ibetween the lever 29 and the shifting yokes of the two clutches. In the present instance we have shown such means as comprising a forwardly extending shaft 32 3 rigid with the lower end' of the lever and rotated upon lateral swinging thereof.

An arm 33 upstands from the forward end of shaft 32, which is generally alined-in a plane transversely of the machine-with similar arms 34V connected to the shifting yokes of the clutches; all said arms being connected by links 35. In this manner the operation may cause the auger to turn in either direction, so as to discharge the dirt engaged thereby from either side of the bowl, or to maintain the auger idle, should it be desired to retain all dirt within the bowl.

The implement also includes a tail boom 36 supported at its rear end by a caster wheel 37. The boom 36 is mounted, at its forward end, on the rear endV of frame 1 for both horizontal and vertical swinging or articulation relative thereto, as indicated at 38. Swinging of the boom about its vertical axis is controlled by a two-way hydraulic rarn 39 connected between frame 1 and the boom yoke 40, and actuated as will be seen later.

Relative vertical articulation of the boom, as determined by ground undulations, actuates a valve as indicated at 41 in FIG. l. Such valve, together with the boom mount, is shown in detail in the aforementioned patent, No. 2,792,651, or as in said copending application, Serial No. 685,106, filed September 20, 1957, and which is now United States Patent No. 2,883,777, as before stated.

Movement of the valve 41 from its normally closed position causes identical actuation of the separate ram units 13 by reason of the hydraulic system now to be described, and which is shown in FIG. 4.

This system-mounted on the implement-comprises a fluid supply tank 42. A pressure conduit 43, with a pump 44 interposed therein, leads from the tank to one port of valve 41. A return conduit 45 leads from the opposite port of valve 41 back to the tank.

A combined feed and return conduit 46 leads from the other port of valve 41 to a branched' conduit 47 which connects at its ends to the opposed intake ports 48 of a conventional positive displacement type flow-divider 49. Other combined feed and return conduits 50 connect the opposed outlet ports 51 and the ram units 13 in separate relationship.

In this manner, the flow to or from the valve 41de pending on the direction of movement of the tail boom and valve controlled thereby-is divided to or from both ram units equally by the flow divider, so that an even up-anddown movement of the blade 7 is assured, even though the wheel units are mounted independently of each other.

In order to control the lateral slope of the blade according to lateral deviations in the road bed traversed by the wheel units 5, a pendulum and/ or hand-actuated valve 52 is provided, which valve is in parallel in the hydraulic system with valve 41. This valve and its actuating mechanism are preferably the same as shown in our copending application for patent, Serial No. 775,811, filed November 24, 1958, now Patent No..2,934,078, and the mechanism, including the valve, is Vmounted substantially as shown in said copending application for patent, Serial No. 685,106, filed September 20, 1957.

The housing `53 of such mechanism is here shown as being mounted in a position convenient to the operator of the implement. A pressure conduit 54 connects one port of valve 52 with the main pressure conduit 43, while a discharge conduit 55 connects the opposite port of the valve 52 with the main return conduit 45. The intermediate port of valve 52 is connected by a conduit 56 with one only of the conduits 50, preferably that one which connects with the right-hand ram unit 13, as shown.

With the above `described arrangement it will be seen that the boom actuated valve 41 controls the blade height -accurately and causes identical movement of the ram units 13 at all times, but has no effect on the cross slope of the blade.

Sometimes, however, it is desirable to produce and maintain some out-of-phase relationship of the two ram units so as to hold the blade on any selected cross slope, with reference to a transverse vertical plane and to a vertically hanging pendulum. rl'he pendulum (or manually) actuated valve, being connected to only one ram unit, needs to add or subtract fluid solely from said one ram unit in the small amount required to produce and maintain the desired out-of-phase relationship.

It has been found from operation that the above described arrangement has considerable advantage over the previous system as shown in the aforementioned copending application, Serial No. 685,106, and gives by far the smoothest and most accurate operation, since the actions of the two control valves are independent, and the sphere of control of one valve is not upset by the operation of the other valve.

Hand control of the tail boom ram 39 is also included in the hydraulic system. Such control comprises a hand valve 57 which is connected' to feed and discharge conduits 58 and 5'9, respectively, and to other conduits 50 leading to Ithe opposite ends of ram 39.

Valve 57 is positioned-so as to be handy to the operator on the seat 30, as indicate in FIG. 3. By this means, the tail boom may be held in any position relative to the main frame, as may be desired for ease of steering of the implement, as when turning short.

As is customary in systems of this general kind, a pressure relief valve 6'1 is interposed in the conduit 43 between the pump 44 and any of the valves; the pressure flow relieved by operation of the valve 61 returning to tank 4Z through a conduit 62.

From the foregoing description it Will be readily seen that there has been produced such a device as will substantially fulfill the objects of the invention, as set forth herein.

While this `specification sets forth in detail the present and preferred construction of the device, still in practice such deviations from such detail may be resorted to as do not form a departure from the spirit of the invention, as defined by the appended claims.

Having thus described the invention, the following is claimed as new and useful, and upon which Letters P'atent are desired:

1. In a land leveling implement, a main wheel-supported frame, a bowl mounted on the frame and including side plates, and a ground engaging blade extending between the side plates, a transverse conveyor-type auger, arranged to be reversibly driven or held stationary, extending the full distance between the side plates, and means mounting the auger inconnection with the bowl a material distance ahead of the blade as well as above the ground, the side plates having openings through which the conveyor at its end projects; said auger being non-enclosed and unobstructed for its full extent between the side plates.

2. A structure, as in claim l, in which the plate openings surround the auger in relatively close relationship, and collars on the side plates extending laterally out therefrom and about the openings into which the auger projects.

3. A longitudinal level control mechanism for a land leveling implement, the implement including a frame, a transverse `scraping blade rigid with the frame, transversely spaced wheel units supporting the implement adjacent the blade, means mounting. the wheel units on the frame for relative vertical adjustment independently of each other, a hydraulic ram connected between each wheel unit and the frame to control the relative raising and lowering thereof, and a fluid pressure system having feed and return conduits; the control mechanism comprising `a normally closed valve to which the feed and return conduits are connected, a ilow divider having opposed intake ports and opposed outlet ports, a third conduit connecting the valve and both of said intake ports, a fourth conduit from one outlet port to one ram, and a fifth conduit from the other outletport to the other ram; there being means to actuate the valve upon variations in the longitudinal level of the land traversed by the implement.

4. A structure, as in claim 3, with a mechanism to control the lateral slope of the implement and including another normally closed valve on the implement connected to said feed and return conduits in parallel to the iirst named Valve, a sixth conduit extending between said other valve and the fourth conduit, and means to actuate the other valve to selectively place the sixth conduit in communication with the feed or return conduit.

5. In a land leveling implement, a main wheel-supported frame, a bowl mounted on the frame and including a back plate, relatively long forwardly projecting side plates, a transverse ground engaging blade extending between the side plates, and a transverse conveyor-type auger supported from and extending the full distance between the side plates at a point a material distance ahead of the back plate and blade and well clear of the ground, said auger being arranged to directly engage dirt as piling up on the ground ahead of the blade and to be driven in a direction to move such dirt toward one side plate, and said one side plate having an opening therethrough symmetrical to and substantially the same diameter as the auger.

References Cited in the le of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 879,366 Conway Feb. 18, 1908 1,462,785 Canion July 24, 1923 1,617,538 Mowbray Feb. 15, 1927 1,993,790 Kinsella Mar. 12, 1935 2,093,766 Rich Sept. 21, 1937 2,386,291 Browne Oct. 9, 1945 2,792,651 Hobday May 21, 1957 2,883,777 Gurries et al. Apr. 28, 1959 2,884,083 McColl Apr. 28, 1959 2,893,140 Gurries July 7, 1959 

